In the midst of a rout in Research in Motion shares, that’s the message being sent by Macquarie analysts Kevin Smithen and Zach Horat as they downgrade the BlackBerry maker’s stock to underperform.

Even as shares face their worst day in 12 years, down 25% to $10.86 in recent trading, the analysts are saying shares should fall another 17%. They put a $9 price target on the stock, though that would still be above the low of $6.22 RIM hit last September.

“Based on our internal survey as well as conversations with mobile procurement and security officers at large US corporates, we are skeptical that BlackBerry will gain traction in its BES 10 product,” the analysts wrote. “As such, the future is bleak for BBRY as an operating business, in our view.”

The analysts said a breakup or liquidation is the “likely end game” and ascribe $9 as the sum-of-the parts value. The parts: $6.12 a share for its services business, plus cash plus $1.58 billion in patents.

“We believe BBRY’s biggest assets remain in its patents and its cash,” the analysts add.

While a sale or breakup of RIM has been talked about for more than a year, that dour view comes largely thanks to the disappointing earnings that hit Friday.

The analysts over at Wedge Partners said the company “essentially fell short on all key metrics” and pointed out that they had been pretty pessimistic in the first place.

“Even given our consistently negative view of company fundamentals and views of weak Z10 sales and production cuts, we didn’t anticipate a report this poor,” those analysts wrote.

But even if the results bring back talk of a sale, selling BlackBerry as a whole has likely gotten much tougher than a few years ago. (Macquarie’s break-up or liquidate suggestion makes that pretty clearly.)

Still, RIM generated enough enough excitement with the launch of its Z10 and Q10 to get shares climbing from their September lows.

If a buyer didn’t swoop in a $6, though, it’s hard to believe one will appear now, with market share tumbling and phone shipments well below expected base and forecasts looking down.

Microsoft had always been a potential bidder, and WSJ reported Nokia and Microsoft had in the past explored a joint bid but not gone further. Microsoft also discussed recently buying Nokia’s handset unit, but decided against that, WSJ reported last week.

The recent discussions with Nokia couldn’t get past concerns about price and worries about Nokia’s slumping market position, among other issues, WSJ reported. It seem likely those concerns would be present in any BlackBerry talks as well, especially given the Nokia-Microsoft alliance has managed to surpass BlackBerry in smart-phone sales.

But that deal could face the other big issue that’s often raised when talking about a RIM deal: Canadian pride. It’s commonly discussed that the Canadian government would struggle to approve the sale of one of Canada’s most well-known corporate success stories to a foreign corporation and a China-based corporation could heighten those fears.